Masala

June 28, 2015

Jugnu is a super-satisfying masala film built around a title character who is part Batman, part Robin Hood. Batman, because Ashok Roy (Dharmendra) is a wealthy, respected member of his community who moonlights as a disguise-wearing do-gooder. And Robin Hood, because the good that Ashok's alter ego, Jugnu, does is robbing other rich people to finance the orphanage he runs for apparently hundreds of little boys (little orphaned girls are on their own, I guess). As Ashok, he is always nattily dressed, a man about town. When he transforms into Jugnu he might impersonate a sardar or a pathan, defraud a bunch of smugglers out of their booty or creep into a heavily guarded museum to pinch the jewel-encrusted treasures within. Ashok Roy leads a very busy life.

And the movie about him is a ton of fun, about as satisfying masala as there is, seasoned with a few borrowings from the spy-movie and heist-movie genres. In one sequence, Jugnu goes after a bejeweled fish sculpture, protected by the most high-tech security system that the movies can offer: the criss-cross cage of invisible beams that, when breached, trigger an alarm. In Jugnu, the beams become visible to anyone who dons a special viewer that looks suspiciously like a swim mask, and thanks to the film's budget the beams themselves look a whole lot more like neon tubes than ephemeral beams of infrared radiation.

After a jaunty song (of course) distracts the museum guard long enough for Jugnu to climb onto its roof, there is a bit lifted right out of my favorite heist movie, How To Steal A Million (which for all I know lifted it from somewhere else). Jugnu uses a strong magnet's pull through a wall to manipulate a key off its hook and into its keyhole just like Peter O'Toole. Sadly, it isn't followed by setting off the alarm with a toy airplane or making out with Audrey Hepburn in a broom closet, but that's really not a strike against Jugnu. Because who needs Audrey Hepburn when you have Hema Malini, who is as much of a badass in this film as ever? When we (and Ashok) first meet her character, Seema, she is giving a sharp-shooting demonstration with a pair of pistols that charms Ashok right out of his snakeskin shoes. Later, she holds her own in a melee scene or two, something that Hema Malini does more and better than any heroine of her era. She even gets to pilot a helicopter. A HELICOPTER. Seema is also a superior dancer - of course - providing the opportunity for just one of Jugnu's fantastic songs. Another one of those great songs comes when the jealous Ramesh (Prem Chopra), hoping to make a fool of Ashok, spikes a glass of soft drink that is naturally consumed by Seema instead. The result is something magical: not merely a drunk song, and not merely a rain song, but a drunk-in-the-rain song. Bada maza aaya, indeed.

Ramesh's relationship to Ashok is a tangled masala microcosm in itself; after Ashok's grandfather (Nasir Hussain) becomes estranged from Ashok's father (Pran), he is defrauded into believing that Ramesh is his long-lost grandson, and raises the boy with all the love and privilege that should have been Ashok's. In the meantime, Ashok's mother is murdered and little-boy Ashok kills her murderer in revenge; this guy turns out later, of course, to be Seema's father. No masala element is spared in the construction of this magnificent narrative.

And there is more, so much more. Jugnu is an epitome of all the reasons we watch masala. There's Dharmendra's cute patriotic song, performed with the help of a hundred adorable little boys and capped by "Jai Hind" written in fireworks. The theme of patriotism is flogged rather hard throughout, in fact; Ashok's father was a freedom fighter, and though Ashok never knew him, Ashok himself frequently proclaims his loathing for traitors. There's a comic sidekick as well, Mehmood, who gets his apotheosis while wearing a clown suit and evading a prowling tiger. There is even Ajit as the head bad guy, menacing about his stylish tricked-out lair with a steel lobster claw in place of a hand. Jugnu just pulls out all the stops in the name of paisa vasool, and it doesn't disappoint - not for a minute.

December 27, 2014

I chose this movie out of Shabana Azmi completism, but what I got turned out to be pretty satisfying masala in its own right. Its backstory is set forth with rare specificity in time; the film opens at the end of World War II, when Indian freedom fighters were operating in exiled cells in east Asia. In this “exotic” setting, a very appealing relationship forms between a delightfully angsty Vinod Khanna and Helen in an unusually non-dancing, non-vamp role.

Fast forward to the present (as masala films do) and you're in pleasingly familiar masala territory: the martyred freedom fighter Vinod Khanna has left an illegitimate son (Danny Denzongpa) in Hong Kong with a distraught Helen, and a legitimate son (also Vinod Khanna) in Bombay with his grave and serious mother (Indrani Mukhejee, who is super-fabulous and intense in this role, and makes me wonder why she's never jumped into my consciousness before, despite the half-dozen or so films I've seen her in). The two young men are, of course, unknown to each other and, of course, on opposite sides of the law - Vinod a proud police inspector, Danny falling in with the smuggling ring that holds Shabana hostage.

No one does man-pain quite like Vinod Khanna.

Highlights include Danny doing kung fu, a very sweet ballad picturized on Helen, and even a taste of filmi-paagal in the form of Shabana Azmi's character's mother, tortured and abused to madness by the villain, Kader Khan (accompanied in this standard-issue villainy ensemble by Ranjeet). There's a pretty cute set of sequences where Danny falls in with a plucky orphan girl called Shabbo; together they engineer some minor cons and become fast friends. Shabana Azmi is as wasted as she ever is in such masala fare, but she does get to wear some super pantsuits and tromp around Darjeeling looking pouty and fabulous. There's really nothing not to like here – an enjoyable bellyful of masala comfort food.

October 26, 2014

It's tough for a movie set in an “exotic” locale to convey a sense of place without resorting to stereotypes, and Love in Tokyo doesn't even really try. Its stars do a little bit of frolicking in front of recognizable Tokyo landmarks, but they do even more prancing about in broad simulacra of Japanese types. Leading up to the song “Sayonara Sayonara” our heroine Asha (Asha Parekh) minces around in a kimono and sandals, waving a fan about, in an exaggerated performance of stereotypical Japanese maidenhood, complete with a put-on accent. Elsewhere in the movie, the hero's buddy Mahesh (Mehmood) finds himself hiding in a geisha house where he, of course, dons full geisha regalia (including porcelain make-up) and distracts the hapless and stupid father (Dhumal) of the girl Mahesh wants to marry. This is just about as broad and unappealing as it sounds.

Mehmood is not the only actor who gets to do some cross-dressing in Love in Tokyo. Early in the movie, Asha flees from Pran (Pran), who is scheming with Asha's uncle Madan (Madan Puri; writer Sachin Bhowmick didn't work too hard at character names) to marry her and make off with her presumed inheritance. Pran puts a price on Asha's return, and to evade capture, she dresses as a Sardar. Portrayals of women in drag are usually of more interest to me than men in drag; they are rarer, and implicate a subtler and more subsersive set of power dynamics. This one, though, is played only for comedy, and is mostly played down; Asha Parekh's performance of Punjabi masculinity is less affected, less physical and thorough, than her performance of stereotyped Japanese femininity. Asha may emit the occasional “Oi!” but she does not alter her presentation much beyond the costume itself. Her voice remains unaltered; she puts no swagger in her walk. There isn't much more here than a girl looking cute in a boy costume.

Ethnic drag, gender drag.

Still, if you're capable of just rolling your eyes at the substitution of stereotype for comedy, rather than becoming indignant and turning off the film in disgust (which would be a perfectly legitimate response, I must acknowledge), Love in Tokyo has its charms. There are some very entertaining songs(*). In “Koi matwala aaya mere dware,” Asha performs a sparkly and lovely, if more or less inexplicable, classical Indian dance on Japanese television, and the romantic songs are very sweet too. Even Mehmood's comic side plot is fairly developed and has some fun moments, as he wheedles and schemes to marry the girl he loves over her father's objections. This culminates in a Mission: Impossible-style impersonation of the father's choice of son-in-law (Asit Sen), accomplished via a super-accurate mask and wig that just happen to be lying around. And as our hero Ashok, Joy Mukherjee is serviceable; he's a good-looking fellow, and if he's a little bland and serious, he makes so much the better straight man for Mehmood's broad, loud comedy and Asha Parekh's own excellent comic skills.

Indeed, Love in Tokyo is at its best when Asha Parekh is being funny, whether in her Sardar avatar, or sparring with Ashok's bratty little nephew Chikoo (the plot device that brings Ashok to Tokyo in the first place). When she is on screen showing off the same physicality that made her performance in Caravan so delightful, Love in Tokyo flies by and is great fun to watch (even in that questionable “Sayonara” song). But when her storyline turns dramatic, she retreats into a sort of generic innocent-heroine avatar that is a lot less engaging.

It's not Asha Parekh's fault, but they way her character shrinks in presence is of a piece with the general bumping off the rails in Love in Tokyo's second half, in which, like many a masala movie, it gets a little dull and draggy. Lalita Pawar gives her trademark haughty rich maa performance in an unnecessary plot derail in which Asha proves her worth as a potential daughter-in-law by volunteering to sacrifice her own eyes to save Ashok's sight. (Fortunately, a medical miracle occurs and the transplant is not needed – forcing this poor girl to give up an organ for love is a bridge too far, for a movie that is mostly romantic comedy.) But at that point, it feels like you're checking boxes on your bingo card – Lalita Pawar spouts some pious, pompous, and blatantly unjust lines? Check. One of the villains (Madan, in this case) has a dramatic last-second change of heart and is promptly murdered by Pran? Check. Hero and villain have exciting mid-air melee in which helicopter flies itself when both are too busy fighting?(**) Check. None of this is bad; it's the stuff of a decent rainy-day timepass. What sticks with me most is the inane yet tenacious earworm of the title song: Mohammed Rafi belting “Jaaapaaaaaaan, Love in Tokyooooooo!”

(*) Love in Tokyo is packed full of musical references to other movies. I caught three of them; there may be more. During a ridiculous sequence in which Mehmood has stepped into some chemical goo that gives him the ability to fly (seriously) the background score picks up Gumnaam's “Hum kaale hain to kya hua.” At another point the background score dips into the melody of “Dheere se jaana khatiyan mein,” from Chhupa Rustam (a movie that came after Love in Tokyo; is it a traditional melody or what?). And there is another sequence in which Mehmood breaks into “Bol Radha Bol” from Sangam.

(**) Free advice for filmmakers: Slicing off Pran's hand in the helicopter blades and showing us the bloody stump isn't strictly necessary.

June 21, 2014

There is much that can be said about Coolie, a stellar exemplar of the socially meaningful masala movie. It is a rich text packed with social commentary, in which the working poor organize and strike against rich, corrupt, and cruel-hearted bosses. It is loaded with masala archetypes, symbols of brotherly and motherly love, religious iconography, unlikely coincidences and grand-scale tragedies, the goofy non-literalism of filmi medicine. And it's long on the kind of entertainment one expects from Manmohan Desai films, superstars palling around and one-upping each other in songs, villains occupying posh and outrageously decorated spaces, romance and charisma and dishoom-dishoom.

The titualar coolie Iqbal (Amitabh Bachchan) is, as you might expect, a charismatic figure with a traumatic past. As a boy, Iqbal is separated from his mother Salma (Waheeda Rehman) during a tragic flood engineered by a narcissistic and entitled millionaire, Zafar Khan (Kader Khan), who kidnaps Salma, traumatized into muteness and amnesia, for his own. Iqbal grows into the de facto leader of a group of coolies. He organizes them against Zafar's attempt to cheat them out of a promised housing development, and leads a dramatic strike in which one by one they throw their badges to the ground, beginning with Iqbal's own 786, of course (cf. Deewaar).

Iqbal befriends a drunken and sympathetic newspaper reporter, Sunny (Rishi Kapoor), who has ambitions of breaking the big story of the coolies' strike. Sunny was raised by Iqbal's mother; Zafar believed that abducting a child for her to raise would ease her trauma, or at least his conscience. At any rate, of course neither Iqbal nor Sunny know for most of the movie that they share a mother, leading to some of the film's many almost-but-not-quite reveals. In one fantastic shot Sunny and Iqbal share reminiscences of their beloved mothers; Sunny keeps a photograph of her inside his typewriter, and Iqbal sits beside it, framed with the portrait, but never seeing the photo.

Coolie is a rich meta-text, too. As is well known, Amitabh Bachchan was seriously injured when the timing of a choreographed fight scene went wrong; he took a full-strength punch to the gut from Puneet Issar. For months during Amitabh's recovery, crowds gathered near his home and prayed for his health. This fact alone says much about the place Amitabh Bachchan occupies among the many gods worshiped in India. Even more telling is the astonishing breaking of the fourth wall that occurs in Coolie itself; the action stops during the fateful scene, and an overlay tells us (in three scripts, so that everyone who can read can understand) that this is the very moment at which Mr Bachchan sustained the terrible injury.

It is difficult to imagine the story taking second seat to the actor in any other circumstance. Film is already a medium in which much suspension of disbelief is required; Hindi film arguably moreso, and the genre of Hindi film to which Coolie belongs, masala, most of all. Yet when it is the life of Amitabh Bachchan on the line, the audience is asked to suspend its suspension of disbelief for a moment, to pay respect to this legend among men and the sacrifices he makes to bring us a good story.

In addition to this worship of Amitabh Bachchan, worship of God is a powerful theme in Coolie. But in contrast to Manmohan Desai's masterpieces of syncretism, Amar Akbar Anthonyand Naseeb, the God that is present in Coolie is unequivocally Allah. This is no doctrinally-vague Bhagwan. Allah literally drops from the sky, in the form of a Koran that falls from the rafters of a flooded home into the boy Iqbal's arms, letting him know he is not alone; in an inscribed prayer that tips off a lintel and clocks Salma on the head, restoring her memory; in a preternatural circle of lightning, summoned by Iqbal's fervent prayer, that encircles Salma with divine vivifying energy. Allah even flies through the sky, in the form of the super-intelligent falcon called Allah Rakha (“Allah the protector”), who repeatedly swoops in to save our heroes from one scrape after another.

Over and over again Allah descends from heaven to grant his blessings to the good guys in Coolie. In the climactic fight scene between Iqbal and Zafar Khan, which takes place in a Muslim shrine, a silken shroud embroidered with the name of Allah blows off an altar and drapes itself protectively around Iqbal's body, rendering him immune to the bullets from Zafar's gun. Desai's trademark syncretism appears only at the very end of the film, where various characters pray to a diverse array of gods, and Krishna, Jesus, Sai Baba and the rest all contribute to Iqbal's recovery from the wounds he sustained in his defeat of Zafar.

There are weaknesses in Coolie that make it less a perfect masala specimen than films like Amar Akbar Anthony or Parvarish; like Naseeb, it suffers from dime-store heroines, a common place to cut corners in masala films. At least Naseeb had the gorgeous sparkle and presence of Hema Malini to make up for the relative dullness of Reena Roy and Kim; here, there is no relief from Rati Agnihotri and Shoma Anand, who are both so unmemorable that it is difficult to tell them apart as the story progresses. One of them (I think it's Rati Agnihotri) gets a little bit of a revenge plot, but it is mostly filler. They are there because heroes need heroines to dance around trees with, else how do you get the flavor of romance into your masala? But their blandness doesn't matter much; Coolie is Amitabh Bachchan's film all the way, and that's just fine. Accept that truth, and you are rewarded with satisfying masala, worthy of the Desai name, and with plenty to chew on, whether watched purely for its fun, or the pleasure of examining all its textual levels.

May 23, 2014

For reasons that are mostly coincidence, I watched three 1980s masala flicks in the space of a little over a week. All three had Kader Khan write them and act in them. Two of the three had Rajnikanth in them; two had Amitabh; two had Amrish Puri; two had Shakti Kapoor; two had Bappi Lahiri scores. And so I had to write them up quickly before the three films became blended into one giant protein-enriched masala smoothie in my brain.

I've written about Naseeb and Geraftaar already, and now turn to the most unlikely of the three: Gangvaa. Here's how it happened.

Beth: @carla_filmigeek I did not - I thought I should watch it with YOU.

A true friend! So Beth and I watched Gangvaa, starring Rajnikanth and Shabana Azmi. Starring Rajnikanth and Shabana Azmi. I want to repeat that and let it sink in, because despite nearly a decade of adoring Shabana Azmi and exploring the ins and outs of her career, I somehow had not really processed that such a thing existed. I've seen a respectable amount of Shabana Azmi's mainstream work. I've also seen a fair amount of her work in dire and terrible films. I've even put myself through the agony of Son of Pink Panther out of pure love for her.

But Shabana starring opposite Rajnikanth, that stylized superstar who is even larger than larger than life? That is a whole new level of pleasing cognitive dissonance. Gangvaa was a film I simply had to see, even without subtitles. What we got was a film that was more enjoyable, and made with more attention to craft, than either one of us particularly expected.

This really exists.

The basic injustice at the core of Gangvaa is the way the landed classes take advantage of ordinary village folk. Early on in the film, a work crew finds a pot full of gold coins (these are delightful yellow-painted circles of cardboard, near as I can tell), and a suitably mustache-twirling zamindar (Amrish Puri) confiscates them to add to his already massive wealth. Enter Gangvaa (Rajnikanth) to save the day; like a classical mythological warrior, he makes his first appearance in the film riding a chariot.

I couldn't get a good screengrab of the chariot, but here's the man a couple moments later.

Gangvaa punches and kicks his way through the zamindar's goons, and quickly dispatches the zamindar to an early exit (presumably freeing Amrish Puri to move on to the set next door where he can play the same villain in some other masala movie). There is a satisfying, if gruesome, spatter of blood on the camera lens to mark the zamindar's final moment on earth. And Rajnikanth's trademark fighting style is such an undeniable thrill to watch, even for someone like me who is not a big fan of dishoom-dishoom. He delivers multiple punches of bone-crunching force without moving his arm - it really is all in the wrist, I guess.

Gangvaa puts together a band of the men who had suffered under the zamindar's tyrrany. Together they hang out in the wilderness and perform Robin-Hood-esque raids for the sake of vigilante justice. At some point Jamna (Shabana Azmi) encounters Gangvaa and is smitten. Then a village girl accuses Gangvaa of rape, and Jamna is enraged - it is here that she gets the vigorously indignant speech that marks Shabana Azmi's movies of this time period, the kind of speech without which one presumes should would not have accepted the role.

But indignation looks so good on her.

It turns out that the rape was actually done by a totally different guy named Gangvaa (Raza Murad), and righting this wrong wins Jamna back for our hero, but makes him a new set of enemies that he spends the rest of the film fleeing from. Also on his tail is an upstanding police inspector in the handsome form of Suresh Oberoi, who cannot allow vigilante justice in his district, no matter how noble the intention. Actually I am not sure that Oberoi's character is the archetypical blemishless uncorruptible officer - having watched Gangvaa without subtitles I am sure I missed some nuance. It is possible that I am merely projecting Oberoi's character from Tezaab on this film. But I'm pretty sure I have it right.

Suresh Oberoi's resemblance to Vivek is stronger in Gangvaa than I've noticed before. Suresh is much better-looking though.

There is a certain grimness to 80s masala movies from which Gangvaa does not shy. There are several distressing suicides. One is quite unexpected; two are commited by characters who would evidently rather die than give up information about Gangvaa. That's the kind of loyalty that only Rajnikanth can inspire.

Gangvaa also features some very creative violence and action, like a scene where a disposable goonda is strapped to a rotating wagon wheel. In one particularly well-crafted highlight, Gangvaa is strung up by his ankles; he frees himself by grabbing a burning candle in his mouth and contorting his limber body until the candle's flame contacts the rope he's suspended from.

I'm glad I watched Gangvaa. I really did need to have the experience of seeing Shabana Azmi paired with Rajnikanth. This was in fact my first exposure to Rajnikanth - I watched it before Geraftaar - and as I noted in my review of that film, I get it. His presence is enormous, and thrilling.

The movie packs a wollop of a surprise ending. I won't spoil it here but it's not a happy one, even though it provides more opportunity for Shabana Azmi to get her sexy rage on. Despite this, Gangvaa is not a bad way to pass a rainy afternoon. Good songs, good character actors, and Rajnikanth eating an apple off a knife blade. Set expectations accordingly, and Gangvaa is pretty enjoyable.

Text (c) 2006-2015, Carla Miriam Levy.
The ideas and opinions expressed in this weblog are mine alone, and do not represent the views of my employer or of any other organization with which I may be associated.